Reflection
by quitesirius
Summary: Sirius reflects on his reflection.


**A/N: This story was inspired by the emotional journey that Sirius Black has taken throughout the course of the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or anything about them. There are small (minuscule, really) references to my own story, Abracadabra, but I doubt any of you will catch them, as this is independent from that work. Enjoy.**

* * *

Sirius Black had never looked at his reflection.  
  
Well, he'd seen it-- but he'd never really looked at it.  
  
He'd never taken in his aristocratic good looks for more than a few seconds in his youth. He'd only glanced at himself long enough to make sure he had nothing his teeth, or hanging from his nose, or that his hair wasn't horribly messy. He hadn't even looked in it to comb his hair-- just to see the end result and tweak it.  
  
But his eyes had never truly wandered to his face.  
  
If they had, Sirius supposed, he would have been considered narcisstic by those around him. He had always known he was decent-looking, but he'd never thought himself handsome until the idea was reinforced time and time again during his years at Hogwarts. When he'd first been told he was a looker, he'd glanced at himself for a few more seconds than usual, shrugged, and decided to go with it.  
  
He sighed, standing there in front of the dirty mirror in one of the four restrooms at Grimmauld Place. Molly had ordered him in to clean it, to which he'd mentally told her to shove off-- it was his house, thank you, and he'd decide what needed cleaning and when.  
  
Granted, that was all he'd been doing lately. Cleaning... he'd never enjoyed it. In fact, he'd probably been the messiest of his friends back in their heyday, and he'd only cleaned enough to make sure he wouldn't break something vital to his anatomy while walking through a room.  
  
It had seemed like nothing at first. He'd brought in the Sudsy Sampson' Super Soap and began to wipe at the mirror, cursing under his breath when he heard the painting of his mother shout something foul at Tonks. Some of the soap had dripped on the floor when he'd went to set his mum's portrait straight, but he didn't notice until he returned and slipped on it.  
  
He fell back and whacked his head harshly on the floor. A sharp pain hissed through his skull momentarily. By the time he got up, it was nothing more than a dull ache. He touched in gingerly and sighed heavily as he rose to his feet.  
  
He slipped again, but this time he caught himself mid-fall. He only thunked his nose on the counter good enough to make it bleed a little and make him release a small cry of pain.  
  
"Sirius? You alright?" he heard Remus call from a few rooms down, where he was busily banishing a boggart.  
  
"Yeah! I'm fine, Moony!"  
  
Sirius wiped at his nose and rolled his shoulders back, feeling and hearing his spine click as though resetting itself. He stretched his neck and stepped onto the carpet of the hallway. He wiped away the liquid on the floor and stepped back into the bathroom to finish up his task.

It was instinct, really, to look in the mirror and make sure he hadn't horribly bashed himself up.  
  
He hadn't, of course. Sirius prided himself on not being a person who bled easily, and this particular incident had been of no difference. Only two drops had escaped his body, slowly creeping toward his upper lip. He reached for a tissue to wipe them away. He looked back into the mirror to make sure he didn't leave any red smears, when it struck him that he'd never really looked at himself.  
  
He guessed he'd looked better in days gone by. He'd so often been told that he had beautiful, glossy, black hair and dark gray eyes that could make any girl's heart melt that he imagined that was why he never needed to look in a mirror to reassure himself-- they'd all seemed so sincere when they told him that.  
  
Lily had told him that once-- jokingly, but with some small bit of honesty, he thought. A small needle stabbed at his heart when he recalled this.  
  
It had been the Christmas after James and Lily' wedding, and they'd been nearing supper time. Peter had been unable to make it, Sirius thought bitterly-- now he knew why. Remus arrived ten minutes early. Lily had reminded Sirius of this when he had strolled in twenty minutes late.  
  
"Can't you ever be punctual?" she'd demanded good-naturedly as she sat a beautiful green bean dish on the table, gently pushing a plate of buttered bread aside with her elbow.  
  
"'Course not! I leave that to Moony, here," Sirius had replied, slapping Remus on the back and eyeing the brightly wrapped gifts beneath the evergreen tree in the corner of the room.  
  
"It's my job," Remus remarked as enthusiastically as a person who'd transformed into a werewolf two nights before could.  
  
"Your job?" Lily asked, brow raised and grin tugging at her lips.  
  
"Yep! He's punctual and I'm pretty," Sirius joked.  
  
"You do a good job of being pretty, Sirius. Must be the magnificent black hair and the smoldering gray eyes," she said whistfully and somewhat dramatically, putting the back of her hand to her forehead and tipping back slightly. "You're just so handsome!"  
  
James had entered right then, looking very manly in a red apron and mitts, carrying a steaming turkey. "Who's handsome?"  
  
"Why, you of course!"  
  
Remus and Sirius burst out laughing, and Sirius found himself brought back to the here and now, staring at his reflection with unfocused eyes.  
  
He shook his head and focused again.  
  
He did have dark gray eyes, but they were absent of a mischievous twinkle girls had so often described to him until he was 22 and in Azkaban. They looked rather dull and dead, in his opinion. They drifted up to look at his hair, which was now somewhat long, matted, and not at all shining with health.  
  
He sighed.  
  
His eyes trailed back down to his face, which he took in with the utmost caution.  
  
His skin was a little dirty and a bit pale-- lack of sunlight, he thought bitterly as a flash of Dumbledore telling him to stay inside danced through his head. His once well-defined cheekbones (or so Trina Little had told him in seventh year) were a mere shadow of their former selves. His nose, which had a smudge of red below it, seemed to be missing a few little pieces where he'd scratched at it in Azkaban, just to know it was there.  
  
His frame, which he'd always carried with grace, poise, and a confidence that some considered cocky, was now hunched at the shoulders and made him seem shorter than his actual 6'2". He was lean and a bit too thin for his build, which he owed to the fact that he often skipped at least one meal a day and didn't get the oppurtunity to enjoy life outside the front door.  
  
He looked away from the mirror and down at his hands. They were cracked and filthy, the material of nightmares for manicurists the world over. His nails were brittle and had enough dirt under them that Sirius, with a small chuckle, imagined he could plant something beneath them.  
  
It'd give him something more to do than clean, he considered. It'd also give him an excuse not to scrub down the wretched place.  
  
"Can't very well kill off my violets in name of polished wood, can I, Molly?" he would have asked.  
  
He snorted at the thought and looked down at his shoes.  
  
Ah, his shoes.  
  
They were very old, indeed, but still served their purpose. He'd immediately thrown out his standard-issue Azkaban boots the first chance he'd gotten, and replaced them with shoes he'd worn when he was sixteen. He'd left them at home when he'd ran away, thinking two pairs was enough to take to James' with him.  
  
They were black motorcycle boots, much like all his other shoes were at the time. They were laced tightly and were still appeared a bit new. Kreacher had stayed away from his room since the day Sirius had left, as Mrs. Black had locked the door and forbade the room to ever be used again-- Sirius had probably contaminated it with his good-heartedness.  
  
She'd always found him to be a disease, and his love of motorcycles, which had blossomed at the age of six, was nothing that would ease her mind. She had called him many insulting, filthy names, but her favorite had been "muggle-lover"-- he'd never considered it a bad thing to be called that, but she seemed to think it was worse than calling a muggle-born a "mudblood".  
  
She'd screamed and yelled and tried to curse him when she saw he and James roar down the road on his motorcycle when they were eighteen. She'd spotted them in the street as she made her way to The Leaky Cauldron, hissing and reluctantly putting her wand away when she realized that people were staring at her.  
  
Sirius had caught her in the corner of his eye, and waved cheerfully.  
  
"On our way to James' for Sunday tea!" he'd shouted as they sped by.  
  
James had just held on quietly, and never mentioned it at all. Indeed, all he ever mentioned about their rides on the motorcycle was that his helmet was a bit small and that it was much more fun to fly it than rumble down the streets of London.  
  
Sirius had often wondered if James had even seen Mrs. Black standing on the sidewalk that day.  
  
His gaze finally came to his wardrobe. He wore very old jeans Mundungus had gotten him for a steal at some muggle clothing shop. Mundungus said he had thought they looked like something Sirius would have chosen if he'd been able to pick them out himself.  
  
He supposed Mundungus was right. He had really liked old, faded, ripped jeans as a teenager, and they'd never fallen out of his favor. Still, he would have preferred something a little more blue and a little more in-one-piece.  
  
His shirt was something he'd found in his closet-- another meaningless possession he'd left behind the day he had escaped to the sanctuary of the Potters' home. It was white, sleeveless, crisp, and perfectly spotless. Well, it had been before he'd started cleaning in it. Now it was more... white-in-some-places-filthy-in-others, sleeveless, and wrinkled.  
  
He looked up at his reflection in the mirror again. Echoes of his teenage self called to him, and for a brief second he thought that if he just... cut his hair and got outside for a bit... maybe...  
  
No, he could never be his old self again-- not even in appearance.  
  
Yet...  
  
"Oy! Sirius! If you want the hallway decent before Harry gets here, you'd better go help Tonks! She's nearly broken three things already!" Molly Weasley's voice called up the stairs.  
  
"Wouldn't want that," Sirius muttered as he began to collect his cleaning materials. "Bleeding tragedy, that'd be. Kreacher would have quite the emotional breakdown..."  
  
He straightened up, bucket and rag in hand, and peered into the mirror again. He sighed at his reflection and raised a hand to his hair as though it were alien to him.  
  
"Sirius!"  
  
"Coming, Molly!"  
  
Sirius left the bathroom then, but had he stayed just outside the doorway long enough, he would have heard his old mirror begin to sniffle.  
  
"Time can do such things..."


End file.
